Do you have a feeling that your high school sweetheart is your soulmate? Think again. Here are 6 reasons why your first love might not be your last.
Looking back, most of us should be jumping for joy knowing that we
didn’t have to stay with the first love that walked into our young
lives. Bad hair, bad manners, bad in bed. Ick! However, those in the
throes of their first love get heartsick at the thought that they might
not end up lifers with their high school sweetheart.
The Fault in our Stars writer and nerdfighter John Green was once
quoted as saying you never feel as purely or as much as you do when you
are a teenager. Why? As teens, we’re finally starting to come into
ourselves as individuals and our hormones and thoughts are running wild.
Your first love is passionate, intense, and hard to get over. Part of
this reason is because we are loving something that is ours alone, and
we are loving it intensely for the first time.
This can cause us to look back at a first love with rose-colored
glasses, simply because those teenage years shaped our perceptions on
what it means to love and be loved.
Why young love never lasts
Still holding on to the idea that your teenage love will be the one
that will stand the test of time? Here are 6 compelling reasons why you
shouldn’t rely on teenage love to last you a lifetime.
#1 Hormones, cheating, and high school drama. If you
were to gather a group of 100 people, and ask how many had their first
experience being cheating on in high school, nearly all of them would
raise their hands. As “parental” as it sounds, as a teenager you have
hormones coming out from every orifice, making your emotions and sexual
control harder to handle than when you’re an adult. What’s more, that
first sting of betrayal will stay with you and shape how you handle
relationships in the future.
High school is also filled with teenage drama: sexual issues, fickle
minds, friends liking your mate, jealousy, bullying, experimentation
with drugs and alcohol, depression, lying, and partying. These things
combined don’t make for a healthy environment for a romantic
relationship. Likely by the end of high school, you’ll be over the drama
and ready to move on to a grown up relationship.
#2 On-off relationships will tire you out. While it
may seem like magic to get back together with your ex in high school,
you’ll soon grow out of this phase and realize how tiresome it is to
continually resuscitate a relationship that has already been broken a
handful of times before.
Not only does this get annoying, it’s already incredibly unhealthy
for your mental state, breeding trust issues and creating an eventual
disinterest or distaste for your mate. Unfortunately, on-off
relationships are practically born in the high school breeding ground.
#3 You change. We don’t stay teenagers forever, and
with growth comes maturity. The way we change deeply effects our
relationships with those around us, and because change happens so
rapidly in our teen years, it tends to doom our chances with our high
school mates.
Studies suggest that humans change notably every 3-7 years. With this
change in place, is it really possible to grow together? The answer is
yes, but it’s unlikely to play out this way in high school, as the
changes you make from your teens to your 20’s are so drastic, you likely
won’t recognize your emotional self.
#4 Your wants and needs mature. The more you’ve
grown, the more you realize your high school boyfriend is kind of a
jerk. Okay, maybe he isn’t, but the point is that people change, and who
you are at the beginning, middle and end of high school will likely not
reflect who you are now. With this emotional growth and experience in
dating different girls or guys in your high school, you’re already
starting to find out what you really want in a partner.
This is a healthy growing process, which will lead you to date more
in the future. While it sounds shallow to say that staying with one
person will stunt your maturity, in some ways it will. Dating different
people allows you to see what qualities you need, and which ones you
won’t put up with in the future.
#5 College blues – the typical loss of your mate. Before
packing your bags for a life of higher-education, you might be asking
yourself: can I stay with my high school boyfriend or girlfriend in
college? Do these relationships last? Does making your way off to
college automatically spell out death for your high school relationship?
The romantic in me wants to say no, but the answer is that
unfortunately in most cases, the answer is yes. Now, if you attend the
same college or university as your beau, you’ll probably end up staying
together longer. It will be a lovely growing experience for the both of
you, as you’ll both be new to dorm-life and living away from home, and
having someone you love in the same campus means you’ll have at least
one guaranteed friend.
That being said, it won’t be long before you’ve both developed new
friends and interests, a new dating pool full of interesting and diverse
people, and suddenly realize how far apart you’ve actually grown.
If you don’t go to the same school, you’re in for an even more
unpleasant experience, but a much easier breakup! Trouble’s a-brewing
when you attempt a long distance relationship with your high school love
post-graduation. Not only does the above information about growing
apart still apply, but you must also throw in never getting to actually
see your mate.
Long distance relationships are hard, even for the most seasoned
daters. Sure, Skype calls are great, but they don’t make up for the
intimacy you get from physically being with someone – especially at such
an important and hormone-addled stage in your life.
#6 You develop different life goals. As we grow, we
discover different wants and needs, not just from our partner, but from
our life. Sure, we’ve seen enough rom-coms to know when we’re using a
line on somebody: “It’s not you, it’s me. We’re just at different stages
in our lives!” But this time, it’s actually true.
As you mature, you start to realize what you want from life. What
happens when you want to be a doctor in Brazil, and she wants to be a
lawyer, or settle down and start a family in Washington? Or worse, what
happens when you want to be a doctor, and he wants to live in your
hometown and work at the local 7-11? Yikes!
It may sound harsh to say you won’t stay with your first
love, and who knows, maybe you will be that one couple that stays
together. But for the most part, don’t sweat it. You’ll continue to grow
without them, discovering what type of person you want to be, and
meeting challenging and fascinating people along the way.
